BOWDOINHAM — Firefighters from three departments quickly squelched a fire that broke out in an upstairs room of a Carding Machine Road home early this morning before the house was seriously damaged.

Bowdoinham Fire Chief Jack Tourtelotte said firefighters were called at 1:17 a.m. to 256 Carding Machine Road for report of a house full of smoke. Richmond and Bowdoin fire departments responded to help Bowdoinham through mutual aid agreements and Topsham and Lisbon Falls covered the station.

Firefighters found an upstairs room fully involved with fire. Crews had the fire out within 10 minutes, Tourtelotte estimates, and didn’t have to use much  water. The room sustained a considerable amount of damage but it was a good stop, the chief said, and the rest of the house sustained only smoke damage.

Tourtelotte said there was a woman and children home at the time the fire broke out. They evacuated the home and waited for the fire department to arrive. No one was injured.

There was a pot-bellied pig in the house that firefighters couldn’t get to leave the house, but the pig is fine, Tourtelotte said. There were some chicks in the upstairs room with a heat lamp set up to keep them warm. Firefighters believe a heat lamp dropped to the floor. A state fire marshal investigator met with Tourtelotte at the scene this morning and confirmed this as the suspected cause of the fire.

The chicks did not survive.

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